In the past, many seals have been provided which included a body having a wire, cord or the like extending therethrough. These prior art devices normally required deformation of the seal body, as by crimping, compressing, or otherwise embedding the wire in the body by means of a hand operated die press after the wire or cord is attached to an object. In order to remove the seal, either the wire or the seal body must be destroyed. Therefore, unauthorized destruction of the seal or the cord or wire normally indicated tampering with the sealed object. Some examples of this type of seal are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 106,734 to Small; 796,107 to Brooks; 1,689,691 to Schaeffer; 1,911,060 to Clark; 3,326,589 to Wenk; and British Pat. No. 10,688, issued 1889.
In other prior art structures, such as U.S. Pat. No. 515,747 to Carr and U.S. Pat. No. 2,079,938 to Hoornstra, an elongated wire or cord is fixed at one end to the body of the seal and the other end is forced through a passageway in the body which permits one way movement only. In this manner, the cord may not be removed but must be severed or the seal destroyed in order to gain entrance to the sealed object or remove the seal from the article to which it is attached.
Still other prior art structures such as U.S. Pat. No. 3,591,223 to Neto discloses multi-part seal bodies which are forced together when the seal is applied and must be destroyed to remove the seal.